


Denial, It's a State of Living

by orange_8_hands



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Canon Character of Color, Choose Your Own Ending, Cliche, Denial, F/M, Future Fic, Implied Relationships, M/M, POV Character of Color, POV Male Character, POV Minor Character, Requited Love, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-17
Updated: 2012-11-17
Packaged: 2017-11-18 21:43:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/565604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orange_8_hands/pseuds/orange_8_hands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This has nothing to do with Boyd being in love with Scott. (AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Version A

**Author's Note:**

> This was not the Boyd fic I've been planning, but I hurt my back and this came out. Version A (Ch. 1) is for those who want the Boyd/Scott happy ending. Version B (Ch. 2) is for the Scott/Allison happy ending, because sometimes unrequited love stays unrequited. (I'm pretty sure this is somewhat OOC, but fuck it, so is half the Sterek out there.) I only marked the two main relationships, but there's a lot of implied pairings in the background.

  
Like most things in life, Boyd inherited the practice from his father.  
  
In this case it meant his mom pointing out she would like to enjoy her retirement while it was still possible to enjoy it, which included her husband, and his dad having a very emotional moment of passing Boyd the keys over soft served frozen yogurt. (It's tradition, okay? It's how he got the house key when he was six and finally responsible enough, it was how he got his car keys with another warning about what it means to drive when he was sixteen, and even though there was no key passing it was how he told his dad about his first apartment off campus. Boyd men eat yogurt and pass around symbolic metal; Boyd women tend to get pedicures.)   
  
He can still remember the first time he flipped on the lights and was able to think, _mine_. His office was no longer in the cramped room next to the bathroom, but the big room at the end of the hall, and he had spent the weekend painting it soothing blue and re-ordering all of his bookcases. It felt like he was no longer trying to play catch-up, no longer trying to be a grown up because he finally _was_ a grown up - this whole thing was his, succeed or fail.  
  
Then the economic crisis hit and he was _screwed_.  
  
***  
  
It was actually Derek who came up with the idea, which while not an impressive burst of creativity was still notable because _Derek_. The first time he met Derek, Derek had been hung-over and slammed into the lab seat next to him. He honest to God pouted when he couldn't find his problem set, and Boyd - who two months into his freshman year still hadn't figured out how to make friends when it turned out it wasn't high school, he actually just hated people - gave him an unimpressed look but offered him his homework. Derek was a senior and needed a science requirement to graduate, because the first two times he took bio he had to take an incomplete. (That he never tried a different science class basically explained the best and worst parts of Derek Hale.)  
  
"You should stick with me. I can take you places," Derek said at the end of the semester.   
  
"You only passed because of me," Boyd pointed out.  
  
"I meant to bars," Derek said, and while Derek sometimes tried to act like an older brother (which was pretty funny because Boyd's little sister was more mature than Derek, and she was _eleven_ at the time), he also introduced him to Erica and Isaac and got him his first fake ID and had an open door policy on his couch for when his raging dickhead of a roommate Jackson shoved him out to have sex all weekend long.  
  
"I'm fucked," Boyd had said, when it became obvious the economy was actually crashing and burning. ("This is why Lydia does our financials," his mom said, "because when I finally got your father retired he was going to stay that way.")  
  
"Maybe not," Derek said, and three hours later came back with Stiles, who had a friend named Scott with "magic hands, dude" and another friend named Danny with "needles he likes to poke people with." And so Boyd Family Healing went from Boyd, a chiropractor, to Boyd, a chiropractor, Scott, a massage therapist, and Danny, an acupuncturist.  
  
Which was great, because it meant he wouldn't actually have to call his father back from Spain and explain he managed to sink the business he spent thirty years building in less than six months.  
  
It was not so great when Scott McCall held out his hand and smiled, and then two seconds later introduced his girlfriend Allison.  
  
(Basically, Boyd was still screwed.)  
  
***  
  
"So you're in love with the guy. Who wouldn't be?" Isaac waved his beer around the room, as if encompassing all the "wouldn't bes." Considering Isaac almost swallowed his tongue the first time he met Scott, and could still get distracted in the middle of a sentence if Scott was bending over, he probably did think everyone was in love with Scott.  
  
"I'm not in love with him," Boyd said. _I just want to bury my face in the crook between his neck and shoulder and inhale, because I'm pretty sure that would be the best smell in the world._ "Seriously."  
  
"Seriously, you are," Erica said, and ran her tongue around the lip of the margarita, chasing salt. Erica was mostly focused on someone in the corner of the room, but she tore her gaze away long enough to look Boyd in the eye and say, "It's kind of ridiculous. Even Stiles noticed."   
  
It wasn't that he didn't like Stiles, necessarily. He was an asshole but so were most of Boyd's friends. (See Example A, Erica.) There was just something about him that bugged Boyd, and it absolutely had nothing to do with the fact he was Scott's best friend and spent an inordinate amount of time with him and was allowed to hang all over Scott and once, when Scott's car wasn't working and Boyd offered to pick him up for work because it was on his way (what, it wasn't that big of a town, technically everything was on his way), he may have seen Stiles walk out of Scott's bedroom in boxers and one of Scott's t-shirts, but that didn't actually matter because Boyd did not begrudge people just because they got hung over and split a bed with someone he was not in love with who was dating someone else anyways.  
  
"You're wrong," he told Erica.  
  
"Ooo, there's a comeback," she said, and licked her lips at the person in the corner.  
  
"He has a girlfriend," Boyd said, and that may not have shut them up either but someone was asking Boyd if he wanted to dance and if it meant getting away from this, the answer was yes.  
  
***  
  
Two days after Scott and Danny started up, Scott invited Boyd and Danny out to drinks. Danny had a date, but Scott had shrugged at Boyd and said, "well, I already know him," and Boyd wasn't sure quite how it happened - there's something about Scott's smile that whites out his brain for a moment - but he was spilling all manner of secrets to Scott, and Scott, unlike his friends not a tight-lipped asshole with angst and trust issues coming out of his pores, shared back.  
  
"My mom was a nurse. Single mom, so she worked a lot of shifts and long hours, and sometimes when she got home I'd give her back rubs, or feet rubs. Man, nurses have the most tired feet ever. I just, I liked it. Made me feel good making her feel good, you know? I was thinking about becoming a vet - used to work for one in high school - but there was no way we were gonna be able to afford college. Financial aid only covers so much. And then Stiles came over with pages of research - there's a reason he's a librarian, seriously - and pointed out I could become a massage therapist, and still help people like my mom, and it seemed like a sweet deal."  
  
"You ever regret it?" Boyd asked. "Not trying to become a vet?"  
  
Scott was quiet for a long moment. "I like what I do. I'm making a difference for people. Like Mrs. Shellinger? When I first started seeing her she could barely walk to open her front door to let me in. And in a month she's walking her daughter down the aisle and dancing with her son-in-law. How can I regret being a part of something like that?"   
  
So yeah, Boyd wasn't in love with Scott.  
  
(It was just very, very hard remembering that.)  
  
***  
  
It wasn't like Scott was perfect. When he got overwhelmed he could only focus on one thing, and would let everything else slide away. He didn't really like Derek, who was technically Boyd's best friend. (Though, in fairness, Stiles was _his_ best friend, and Boyd wasn't that big on him either.) He tended to ditch plans if Allison called, and like Erica he couldn't cook worth shit, and some of the music he liked to play was physically painful to listen to.   
  
Frankly, Scott was awesome but not perfect, and it was enough being his friend, and there was plenty of fish in the sea, and painful clichés existed for a reason.  
  
"We just got to get him to dump Allison," Derek said. "Or Allison to dump Scott."  
  
He was just having a hard time convincing his friends of it.  
  
"He loves Allison and Allison loves him and can you please stop fucking talking about this?"  
  
"No. He's awesome and he can do better than Allison and you're...well, you're better than Allison at least."  
  
Boyd groaned and leaned his head against the table. If Derek didn't actually watch soap operas (and that was debatable), he definitely liked living one, because he had a "budding pyromaniac ex" who was related to Allison, or looked like Allison (Boyd was never quite sure because Derek had to be very, very drunk to talk about Kate and Derek tended to slur his words when he was), so of course he had a secret vendetta against her, which just meant he frowned at her a lot and said shitty things about her.  
  
Which, huh, was probably one of the reasons Scott didn't like Derek; Derek was not subtle.  
  
"Allison is cool," Boyd said, and then added, "Hey, so I hear Martin Freeman is going to play Bilbo."  
  
It was hardly a smooth transition, but forty minutes of listening to Derek wax lyrically about The Lord of the Rings and how The Hobbit had better be just as good was a lot better than having to defend Allison.  
  
***  
  
The other thing was, he didn't actually hate Allison. She was a cop whose hobbies included knife throwing and archery, and he wasn't completely comfortable when he was alone with her, but she also spent a lot of time giggling and singing along to Scott's shitty music and sending Scott flowers and look, he wasn't actually going to hate someone who treated Scott like he was as adorable and wonderful as he was.   
  
(That made him a good friend, not in love with the guy, so just shut the fuck up Erica.)   
  
The second time he met Allison was a Sunday morning, three weeks after the first time. He was unlocking the main office because paperwork was always easier when no one was around - and he wanted to actually finish writing up all his notes for the week before the week became a month later - when he heard it. Low music and a giggle from Scott's room, and maybe the door shut loudly behind him because he could hear a muffled voice ask "Did you hear that?" and before he could figure out how to develop transportation powers Scott's door opened. She leaned out, a white sheet wrapped around her obviously naked body, and he couldn't see her other hand but he could hear something _clink_ when she placed it down.  
  
She gave a half embarrassed, half proud smile and slight shoulder shrug. "We didn't realize someone was coming in today. Um, hi. I'm Allison. Scott's girlfriend. We met last week."  
  
"I remember," Boyd said. He doesn't ask _what are you doing?_ because it was kind of obvious what they were doing. (Why, when they had a perfectly good house they lived in together, he wasn't sure, but the _what_ was right there in front of him, wrapped in a sheet.)     
  
"Right. Sorry about this. We just -"  
  
"Uh, no, it's okay, I just had to drop something off, I'm actually meeting a friend, so..."  
  
"Right," Allison said, and then grinned so her dimples showed. "You're much more accommodating than Stiles."  
  
The door opened enough for him to see Scott - wearing boxers and nothing else - give a little wave before Allison closed it behind her. He had enough presence of mind to open and close the front desk draw like he was dropping something into it (because if he could hear the music and giggles start up again, than they could hear him) and then he left, driving over to Derek's in a kind of daze because Derek sucked at emotional moments and wouldn't try to talk to him about wanting what you couldn't have.  
  
***  
  
And frankly, for the longest time, that was the story.  
  
Scott loved Allison and Allison loved Scott and Boyd was very happy for the both of them.  
  
***  
  
Look, he wasn't actually glad when something about overbearing family and identity issues and not having room to grow turned into Scott staring at the picture of frolicking puppies on Boyd's office wall and saying, "I think this time is it. I gotta...I gotta let her go."   
  
(It just felt like every bone in his body exhaled, and his chest could finally _breath_.)  
  
***  
  
"Are you even paying attention?" Lydia asked.  
  
"No," Boyd admitted, because if he tried to fake it she would take it out of him in very, very petty ways. (He's pretty sure Lydia and Danny have had long discussions about passive-aggressive vindictiveness, and how natural it was to the both of them. Danny leaving the needles in Stiles after he wouldn't shut up about his own attractiveness was probably just one of many of those moments.)   
  
Lydia tossed her hair over her shoulder. "You officially have one minute to spill your heart out and then we're going to focus on something I actually care about. Go."  
  
"Just...how long do you have to wait to ask a guy out after he broke up with his girlfriend?"  
  
"Depends. Did she break up with him or did he break up with her?"  
  
"She broke up with him. Or maybe it was more mutual than that."  
  
"Well how long has it been?"  
  
"Three months."  
  
"That's plenty of time. Honestly I'm surprised you're not still holding out for McCall."  
  
Boyd felt his mouth open slightly. "You knew about that?"  
  
Lydia flicked a speck of dust off her jacket. "Everybody knows about your trite crush on him." Then he watched her whole body tense, like a string on a bow finally plucked. "Are you saying Allison Argent is no longer dating McCall?"   
  
"Yeah. Why? You know her?"  
  
"I-" For the first time, Lydia looked flustered. "I used to. She was...it's nothing. Just, let's get back to your numbers, okay?"  
  
"Okay."  
  
***  
  
Boyd wasn't actually sure how to do this. He became friends with Derek because it made sense (there was no way he was going to spend the weekends sleeping in the dorm's lobby because Jackson was able to get laid), and Erica and Isaac just took him into their group like there wasn't any other way it could have been, and everybody else he became friends with either worked for him or knew someone who did. He never dated all that much, and he definitely didn't know how you went up to a person and explained, "it's not that our friendship has been a lie, but I've also liked you this whole time."  
  
"Well, first of all, don't say liked, this isn't second grade," Erica explained, poking at what he knew was meat only because Isaac saw her put it in and said so. Every few months Erica got this idea that if she cooked a picturesque dinner it would prove her mother wrong about everything. So far, her mother could rest very easy in the knowledge of being right. "It really says something that I seem to be more in touch with your feelings than you are, but you love him. And second, it's Scott. Make a poster that says 'I want to date you' because otherwise he's not gonna get the message. He has, like, no boundaries with friends; you need to hit him over the head with it."  
  
"He likes sparkles," Isaac offered, watching Erica try to saw the meat. Both Isaac and Derek looked at the meat with the expression of men who had once tried her meatloaf (pot roast? Boyd still wasn't sure), and then spent a lot of the next morning in bathrooms.  
  
"You should just tell him. Be honest about your emotions," Derek said. All three of them turned and looked at him. "What?" he asked, spreading his hands.  
  
"Seriously? _You're_ saying this?"  
  
"What?"  
  
By unspoken agreement all three of them got back to the point. "Look, you aren't a coward," Erica said, now just hacking at the lump. "You can do this."  
  
"Can I prove my courage by asking if we can please order take out?"    
  
Erica jabbed at the meat one more time. "Ugh, fine. But we're getting Chinese."  
  
Isaac patted her shoulder as he went by to get the menus. "It's okay to be a cliché, Erica. Just look at Boyd."  
  
"Fuck off, sparkle boy."  
  
***  
  
He waited until Saturday after work because it meant if it went the way nobody seemed to think it would but him, he wanted the next day to recover from the hangover. He's pretty sure Scott hugging him and saying no thanks would take more than one tequila bottle to get over. And probably more than one day. In fact, it made a lot more sense to live in the uncertainty than actually go up to Scott and blurt out -  
  
"It turns out I'm in love with you."  
  
(Yeah. Like that.)   
  
Scott's eyes widened.  
  
Just fuck, but if Boyd was going to do this apparently he was going to do this. "Yeah. In love with you. I mean, being your friend is great, it's awesome, but I'd like to be more. I know you're not ready because of Allison and I can wait, if you want me to, but it's okay if you don't. I just, I wanted to let you know."  
  
There was a long moment of silence. Several stars exploded during this time, and Boyd's stomach managed to eat itself.  
  
And then Scott smiled. "Cool," he said, and leaned over and kissed Boyd.  
  
***  
  
For the record, Boyd was right. The crook between Scott's neck and shoulder was the best smell in the world.  
  
(And if he used his teeth just right, Scott made the best _sound_ in the world too.)


	2. Version B

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Both stories start the same way so if you've read Version A just scroll down most of the way to get to the new section. (It's after the Allison/Scott role-playing at the office moment.)

  
Like most things in life, Boyd inherited the practice from his father.  
  
In this case it meant his mom pointing out she would like to enjoy her retirement while it was still possible to enjoy it, which included her husband, and his dad having a very emotional moment of passing Boyd the keys over soft served frozen yogurt. (It's tradition, okay? It's how he got the house key when he was six and finally responsible enough, it was how he got his car keys with another warning about what it means to drive when he was sixteen, and even though there was no key passing it was how he told his dad about his first apartment off campus. Boyd men eat yogurt and pass around symbolic metal; Boyd women tend to get pedicures.)   
  
He can still remember the first time he flipped on the lights and was able to think, _mine_. His office was no longer in the cramped room next to the bathroom, but the big room at the end of the hall, and he had spent the weekend painting it soothing blue and re-ordering all of his bookcases. It felt like he was no longer trying to play catch-up, no longer trying to be a grown up because he finally _was_ a grown up - this whole thing was his, succeed or fail.  
  
Then the economic crisis hit and he was _screwed_.  
  
***  
  
It was actually Derek who came up with the idea, which while not an impressive burst of creativity was still notable because _Derek_. The first time he met Derek, Derek had been hung-over and slammed into the lab seat next to him. He honest to God pouted when he couldn't find his problem set, and Boyd - who two months into his freshman year still hadn't figured out how to make friends when it turned out it wasn't high school, he actually just hated people - gave him an unimpressed look but offered him his homework. Derek was a senior and needed a science requirement to graduate, because the first two times he took bio he had to take an incomplete. (That he never tried a different science class basically explained the best and worst parts of Derek Hale.)  
  
"You should stick with me. I can take you places," Derek said at the end of the semester.   
  
"You only passed because of me," Boyd pointed out.  
  
"I meant to bars," Derek said, and while Derek sometimes tried to act like an older brother (which was pretty funny because Boyd's little sister was more mature than Derek, and she was _eleven_ at the time), he also introduced him to Erica and Isaac and got him his first fake ID and had an open door policy on his couch for when his raging dickhead of a roommate Jackson shoved him out to have sex all weekend long.  
  
"I'm fucked," Boyd had said, when it became obvious the economy was actually crashing and burning. ("This is why Lydia does our financials," his mom said, "because when I finally got your father retired he was going to stay that way.")  
  
"Maybe not," Derek said, and three hours later came back with Stiles, who had a friend named Scott with "magic hands, dude" and another friend named Danny with "needles he likes to poke people with." And so Boyd Family Healing went from Boyd, a chiropractor, to Boyd, a chiropractor, Scott, a massage therapist, and Danny, an acupuncturist.  
  
Which was great, because it meant he wouldn't actually have to call his father back from Spain and explain he managed to sink the business he spent thirty years building in less than six months.  
  
It was not so great when Scott McCall held out his hand and smiled, and then two seconds later introduced his girlfriend Allison.  
  
(Basically, Boyd was still screwed.)  
  
***  
  
"So you're in love with the guy. Who wouldn't be?" Isaac waved his beer around the room, as if encompassing all the "wouldn't bes." Considering Isaac almost swallowed his tongue the first time he met Scott, and could still get distracted in the middle of a sentence if Scott was bending over, he probably did think everyone was in love with Scott.  
  
"I'm not in love with him," Boyd said. _I just want to bury my face in the crook between his neck and shoulder and inhale, because I'm pretty sure that would be the best smell in the world._ "Seriously."  
  
"Seriously, you are," Erica said, and ran her tongue around the lip of the margarita, chasing salt. Erica was mostly focused on someone in the corner of the room, but she tore her gaze away long enough to look Boyd in the eye and say, "It's kind of ridiculous. Even Stiles noticed."   
  
It wasn't that he didn't like Stiles, necessarily. He was an asshole but so were most of Boyd's friends. (See Example A, Erica.) There was just something about him that bugged Boyd, and it absolutely had nothing to do with the fact he was Scott's best friend and spent an inordinate amount of time with him and was allowed to hang all over Scott and once, when Scott's car wasn't working and Boyd offered to pick him up for work because it was on his way (what, it wasn't that big of a town, technically everything was on his way), he may have seen Stiles walk out of Scott's bedroom in boxers and one of Scott's t-shirts, but that didn't actually matter because Boyd did not begrudge people just because they got hung over and split a bed with someone he was not in love with who was dating someone else anyways.  
  
"You're wrong," he told Erica.  
  
"Ooo, there's a comeback," she said, and licked her lips at the person in the corner.  
  
"He has a girlfriend," Boyd said, and that may not have shut them up either but someone was asking Boyd if he wanted to dance and if it meant getting away from this, the answer was yes.  
  
***  
  
Two days after Scott and Danny started up, Scott invited Boyd and Danny out to drinks. Danny had a date, but Scott had shrugged at Boyd and said, "well, I already know him," and Boyd wasn't sure quite how it happened - there's something about Scott's smile that whites out his brain for a moment - but he was spilling all manner of secrets to Scott, and Scott, unlike his friends not a tight-lipped asshole with angst and trust issues coming out of his pores, shared back.  
  
"My mom was a nurse. Single mom, so she worked a lot of shifts and long hours, and sometimes when she got home I'd give her back rubs, or feet rubs. Man, nurses have the most tired feet ever. I just, I liked it. Made me feel good making her feel good, you know? I was thinking about becoming a vet - used to work for one in high school - but there was no way we were gonna be able to afford college. Financial aid only covers so much. And then Stiles came over with pages of research - there's a reason he's a librarian, seriously - and pointed out I could become a massage therapist, and still help people like my mom, and it seemed like a sweet deal."  
  
"You ever regret it?" Boyd asked. "Not trying to become a vet?"  
  
Scott was quiet for a long moment. "I like what I do. I'm making a difference for people. Like Mrs. Shellinger? When I first started seeing her she could barely walk to open her front door to let me in. And in a month she's walking her daughter down the aisle and dancing with her son-in-law. How can I regret being a part of something like that?"   
  
So yeah, Boyd wasn't in love with Scott.  
  
(It was just very, very hard remembering that.)  
  
***  
  
It wasn't like Scott was perfect. When he got overwhelmed he could only focus on one thing, and would let everything else slide away. He didn't really like Derek, who was technically Boyd's best friend. (Though, in fairness, Stiles was _his_ best friend, and Boyd wasn't that big on him either.) He tended to ditch plans if Allison called, and like Erica he couldn't cook worth shit, and some of the music he liked to play was physically painful to listen to.   
  
Frankly, Scott was awesome but not perfect, and it was enough being his friend, and there was plenty of fish in the sea, and painful clichés existed for a reason.  
  
"We just got to get him to dump Allison," Derek said. "Or Allison to dump Scott."  
  
He was just having a hard time convincing his friends of it.  
  
"He loves Allison and Allison loves him and can you please stop fucking talking about this?"  
  
"No. He's awesome and he can do better than Allison and you're...well, you're better than Allison at least."  
  
Boyd groaned and leaned his head against the table. If Derek didn't actually watch soap operas (and that was debatable), he definitely liked living one, because he had a "budding pyromaniac ex" who was related to Allison, or looked like Allison (Boyd was never quite sure because Derek had to be very, very drunk to talk about Kate and Derek tended to slur his words when he was), so of course he had a secret vendetta against her, which just meant he frowned at her a lot and said shitty things about her.  
  
Which, huh, was probably one of the reasons Scott didn't like Derek; Derek was not subtle.  
  
"Allison is cool," Boyd said, and then added, "Hey, so I hear Martin Freeman is going to play Bilbo."  
  
It was hardly a smooth transition, but forty minutes of listening to Derek wax lyrically about The Lord of the Rings and how The Hobbit had better be just as good was a lot better than having to defend Allison.  
  
***  
  
The other thing was, he didn't actually hate Allison. She was a cop whose hobbies included knife throwing and archery, and he wasn't completely comfortable when he was alone with her, but she also spent a lot of time giggling and singing along to Scott's shitty music and sending Scott flowers and look, he wasn't actually going to hate someone who treated Scott like he was as adorable and wonderful as he was.   
  
(That made him a good friend, not in love with the guy, so just shut the fuck up Erica.)   
  
The second time he met Allison was a Sunday morning, three weeks after the first time. He was unlocking the main office because paperwork was always easier when no one was around - and he wanted to actually finish writing up all his notes for the week before the week became a month later - when he heard it. Low music and a giggle from Scott's room, and maybe the door shut loudly behind him because he could hear a muffled voice ask "Did you hear that?" and before he could figure out how to develop transportation powers Scott's door opened. She leaned out, a white sheet wrapped around her obviously naked body, and he couldn't see her other hand but he could hear something _clink_ when she placed it down.  
  
She gave a half embarrassed, half proud smile and slight shoulder shrug. "We didn't realize someone was coming in today. Um, hi. I'm Allison. Scott's girlfriend. We met last week."  
  
"I remember," Boyd said. He doesn't ask _what are you doing?_ because it was kind of obvious what they were doing. (Why, when they had a perfectly good house they lived in together, he wasn't sure, but the _what_ was right there in front of him, wrapped in a sheet.)     
  
"Right. Sorry about this. We just -"  
  
"Uh, no, it's okay, I just had to drop something off, I'm actually meeting a friend, so..."  
  
"Right," Allison said, and then grinned so her dimples showed. "You're much more accommodating than Stiles."  
  
The door opened enough for him to see Scott - wearing boxers and nothing else - give a little wave before Allison closed it behind her. He had enough presence of mind to open and close the front desk draw like he was dropping something into it (because if he could hear the music and giggles start up again, than they could hear him) and then he left, driving over to Derek's in a kind of daze because Derek sucked at emotional moments and wouldn't try to talk to him about wanting what you couldn't have.  
  
***  
  
Boyd had a firm grasp on what was real and what wasn't, despite the many, many things his friends said.  
  
Scott loved Allison and Allison loved Scott and Boyd was very happy for the both of them.  
  
(And that was all it was ever going to be.)  
  
***  
  
"Hey, so Stiles and I are going ring shopping tonight," Scott said.  
  
Both of them were in Boyd's office killing time between patients, because no one wanted to hang out by the reception desk and listen to Greenberg. (He talked a lot about Finstock, who was either his cat or his favorite porn star. It was hard to tell with Greenberg.)  
  
"Yeah?" Boyd swallowed, but Scott was playing with his phone and didn't notice. "That's cool."  
  
Scott nodded. "Yeah. I was trying to wait until I saved up enough to buy her something nice. I'm going to do the home cooked meal, fancy dessert, candles all around...I just want to make this good for her, you know?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
They could both hear the door open and Greenberg's delighted "Ms. Lee!"  
  
Scott stood up, punched his shoulder lightly. "Wish me luck," he said, and headed out to his patient before Boyd could respond.  
  
"Yeah." His mouth tasted like ashes.  
  
***  
  
It still sometimes struck him, when he was watching Scott with his patients or taking a sip from his beer bottle or crowing because he got something over Stiles. Scott was Scott and Scott was, he could admit (in the privacy of his own head, at least), very easy to fall in love with. Hell, even Derek was trying to get on his good side, which was not going well because it turned out for Allison Scott could carry a grudge like no one's business.  
  
Somebody had fallen in love with Scott, and Scott had fallen in love back, and it all happened before Boyd was ever going to have a chance.  
  
***  
  
"You'll be one of my groomsmen, right?"  
  
"Of course," Boyd said. He reached over and hugged Scott, and Scott just hugged him back, like this was something they did all the time.  
  
In the crook between his shoulder and neck, Boyd breathed, and finally let go.


End file.
